Futile Trials

Ok...

"Right, well, this has been an interesting conversation. Bye now."

You turn to skip off into the woods, eager to flee the eerie thing, but it snaps one of its freakishly long arms around you, those long finger-like claws cutting deep into your skin. 

But you're not going to give up! You continue to press on, and there's a shrill whine, a creak, a snap; the claws are still sunk in your skin, but the arm has given way. You broke off their arm! Their... Their arm made of twigs and sticks and woven with leaves and moss. What is this thing?!

You pull their ash blackened claws from your skin with a painful jerk, dropping the unnerving ligament.

And you run. You run and run, and you don't dare look back. 

Blood pours generously from your wound as you move, but you'll live. You can make it. You know. You can feel it. 

The lights from the city begin to stab through the trees, you've almost reached civilization! You've almost reached safety!

The path is clear. The path is well trodden. It's a straight track home.

So you run harder. You're fastest sprint. Record breaking speeds. 

But suddenly, the city seemed to grow so very distant.

The pain in your flank pales in comparison to the mountains erupting across your abdomen; your chest; your legs. 

The city lights are growing fuzzy by the time you can bring yourself to look down upon yourself, where you have been impaled.

You are a breathing cheese grater, so full of holes. 

That wicked thing! It didn't need to run after you, no, never.

Twigs, branches, roots, thorns; they all erupted from the ground in a moment's notice, thrusted like spikes in your path. 

It happened so suddenly, so brutally, you couldn't have stopped in time. 

And slowly, you slump onto the dangerous plants, before they slither away from beneath you.

You're left punctured and dying without a trace.

Game Over